Traditionally, telecommunications have been performed over the public switch telephone network (PSTN). A system to maintain addresses and other location information of the subscribers of telecommunications companies operating on the PSTN was developed to provide addresses and locations to emergency first responders. Determining the location of subscribers of the telecommunications companies was relatively easy as the locations of telephones were known by the telecommunications companies or carriers due to installing the telephones, establishing billing, or otherwise.
Telecommunications have been changing rapidly over the past several years, primarily since the development and growth of the mobile telephone industry. As a result, the predominant manner in which consumers communicate has changed and the ability of an Emergency Service Number (ESN) server to associate a location or address with a phone number is not possible. Mobile devices now account for over 70% of emergency calls, and with existing location methodologies an ESN server can only provide, at best, an estimated location represented by a circle on a map, as opposed to a verified civic address, e.g. an official street address of a dwelling or building.
New forms of telecommunications including Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) have been developing as well. With the new forms of telecommunications, subscribers are able to use wireless devices that may access different wireless access points to communicate over a communications network, such as the internet. For example, Unlicensed Mobile Access (UMA) allows internet protocol (IP) access to core networks of many mobile carriers. The primary method for locating a wireless device using UMA access is by using the Global Positioning System (GPS) functionality of the device. However, GPS has limited accuracy, particularly in urban areas where the bulk of emergency calls originate.
One common interface for wireless access to a communications network includes an IEEE 802.11 communications protocol, which is commonly known as WiFi, and within the industry as Unlicensed Mobile Access (UMA). Standards for UMA have been established between the mobile industry and WiFi industry associations. Wireless devices are being configured to have WiFi communications protocols to enable a subscriber to access WiFi enabled access points. Many WiFi enabled wireless devices have global positioning system (GPS) capabilities that are able to communicate the GPS location information (i.e., latitude and longitude coordinates) of the WiFi enabled device. While GPS location information may be helpful to track or locate a person at an estimated geographical location, such information is not extremely useful in an emergency situation where emergency rescue teams, such as firemen and police, better understand civic address (e.g. street address) information for performing an emergency rescue in an emergency situation.
A public safety answering position (PSAP), or emergency call center, is used by emergency services to answer calls from the public to notify emergency personnel, such as police or firemen, to respond to an emergency situation. Traditionally, a caller contacts a PSAP by dialing 911 (or 112 in Europe) and provides location information during the telephone call. When caller identification (i.e., caller ID) was introduced, PSAPs were installed with telephone systems compatible with caller ID to identify names and phone numbers of individuals placing emergency 911 calls. This first version of caller ID is known as type I caller ID. Type I caller ID operates in a single data message format (SDMF) as well as multiple data message format (MDMF) that provide a caller's telephone number, date and time of the call during the ringing interval. A second type of caller ID or type II caller ID was later developed to communicate name and address information of a second calling party to a called party when a call between a called party and a first calling party is in progress. Type II caller ID uses a multiple data message format (MDMF) that communicates a caller's name, telephone number, date and time.
Enhanced 911 (E911) is a North American Telephone Network (NATN) feature of the 911-emergency-calling system that uses a reverse telephone directory provided by cellular telephone companies to determine location information of a caller. There are two types of E911 systems that operate within the United States, namely, Phase I and Phase II. E911 Phase I systems are required to provide an operator with the telephone number, originator, and location of the cell site or base station receiving a 911 call. E911 Phase II systems are required to use an automatic location identification (ALI). However, only 18% of all PSAPs are configured with E911 Phase II systems. The remaining 82% of PSAPs are configured with E911 Phase I systems, which are incapable of handling GPS coordinates, and, therefore, subscribers who have wireless telephones that use GPS coordinates for 911 emergency calls cannot be properly serviced by these PSAPs. If a caller is using a non-cellular wireless device, such as a WiFi enabled wireless device, an operator at a PSAP with E911 Phase I capabilities is unable to determine address location based on GPS coordinates that are received from the caller. Also, because WiFi enabled wireless devices do not communicate via a cellular network, there is no cell site or base station location information to be communicated to the PSAP. Furthermore, the billing address associated with a cell phone is not necessarily considered the location to which emergency responders should be sent, since the device is portable. This means that locating the caller is more difficult, and there is a different set of legal requirements.
Accurate and automatic mobile emergency location is the biggest challenge in the ESN Industry. As noted above, currently about 70% of emergency calls come from mobile devices. Current methodologies are all network centric and layered over a cellular network. For example, approximate location can be determined using GPS, Assisted GPS (AGPS), cell tower triangulation, and cell tower signal strength/power measurements. Unfortunately, these techniques only provide a rough estimate of a caller's location (e.g. a circle on a map) not a dispatchable civic address.
In U.S. Pat. No. 9,179,280, Ray et al. disclose a system and method for providing location information to a public safety answering point during an emergency 911 call from a WiFi handset. When a user of a WiFi handset makes an emergency 911 call, the GPS location of the handset and its mobile directory number is received at a network access (WiFi) access point. The WiFi access point adds address information to the GPS and mobile directory number of the handset and send the information to a PSAP over the internet. This is a WiFi handset-only solution, and presupposes that the WiFi handset can access the WiFi Access point through its security layer, that there is a good connection to the internet, and that the PSAP is capable of receiving and processing internet calls.
While the methodology describe above by Ray et al. can work for WiFi phones, cell phones are programmed to use the cellular network to transmit emergency calls. Additionally, WiFi phones are specific to a Local Area Network (LAN) where a “controller” receives communications from the Wi-Fi handset, recognizes it is an emergency call and then obtains location information. While this can be effective for a managed LAN or a controlled environment (e.g. a shopping mall, large corporation or plant) it would not be functional or capable for widespread use.
In U.S. Patent Pub. No. 2017/0171754, South et al. disclose a method for secure, beacon-based emergency location including detecting, with an app executing on a user device, a signal from a nearby beacon, and transmitting app verification information to the beacon, which then sends beacon verification information including the app verification information to both the user device and an emergency verification server. The method also includes authenticating, with the emergency information server, the beacon verification information to verify that the user device is physically proximate to the beacon and, if the beacon verification information is authentic, determining the geographical location of the user device based upon the geographical location of the beacon. This solution presupposes that the app is installed, activated and is functional on the mobile device, that the beacon that the mobile device can access the beacon through its security layer (if any), that there is good connection to the internet, and that all of the verifications have been met.
This system described by South et al., is believed to be very difficult to implement. Regulatory issues will be many and the anticipated cost to deploy and maintain beacons will be great. Furthermore, the complexity of verifications and/or utilization of public and private keys would introduce many new elements into the current emergency systems that operators may be reluctant to implement due to the high costs of installation, maintenance, quality control and system management for a new system.
These and other limitations of the prior art will become apparent to those of skill in the art upon a reading of the following descriptions and a study of the several figures of the drawing.